A former top executive at Red Hat has started a new business that fuses her expertise in open-source software and her passion for upgrading information technology in the medical arena.
The startup is headed by Joanne Rohde, who was executive vice president of worldwide operations when she left Raleigh-based Red Hat more than two years ago. Axial Exchange aims to create a network where health-care providers -- doctors, hospitals, laboratories, etc. -- can securely exchange electronic medical information.
The seven-employee company is planning a subscription service that would enable health-care providers to use its exchange efficiently and would provide software that would transform electronic medical data into a common format. Prices will be based on volume with an eye toward making the service affordable to providers of all sizes.
"The big goal is to get everyone playing on the network so they can talk to each other," Rohde said.
That's where open-source software -- nonproprietary software whose code can be manipulated by anyone -- comes in.
The company's open-source arm, the Axial Project, would make the software for connecting with the exchange downloadable free over the Internet. Axial Project is expected to be up and running in the next month or so.
"We do want ubiquity," Rohde said.
The bits and bytes of the exchange service are still in development.
"We are still working with our potential customers, [asking] if we do it this way, is it going to work for you?" Rohde said.
She and her three partners are still determining precisely how much venture capital they need to raise to make their vision a reality. But it will exceed $2 million, said Mark Ragusa, vice president of business development.
Local health-care providers are Axial's initial target customers.
Dr. Ben Alexander, chief medical officer at Raleigh's Wake Med, has met several times with Rohde and other Axial executives and likes what he has heard so far.
"In my opinion, they have one of the more innovative ways of pulling off a health information exchange," said Alexander, who noted that the federal government is encouraging the development of such exchanges. "We're certainly very interested in what they are doing."
Rohde thinks Axial's business plan is a prescription not only for a thriving business but also for a better health-care system.
She herself suffered when her numerous ailments -- including fibromyalgia and a chronic fungal infection "that grew like kudzu in my intestinal tract" -- were long misdiagnosed by a host of doctors. She thinks that could have been avoided if all her doctors had access to all her pertinent medical records.
Rohde's partners include: Ragusa, a former Nortel and Fujitsu executive; former Red Hat executive Matt Mattox; and John Casey, previously executive vice president at UBS Investment Banking.
